


Stay Awake

by Lilly_C



Series: Prompt in a Box [6]
Category: Masters of Science Fiction (TV)
Genre: Community: prompt_in_a_box, Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-11
Updated: 2009-02-11
Packaged: 2017-12-27 03:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilly_C/pseuds/Lilly_C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Prompt used was Why do you ask a question you already know the answer to?</p><p>Set just after Lt. Granger says “Do you ever sleep?” to Major Skynner. Lt. Granger doesn’t have a first name, so I gave her one.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Stay Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt used was Why do you ask a question you already know the answer to?
> 
> Set just after Lt. Granger says “Do you ever sleep?” to Major Skynner. Lt. Granger doesn’t have a first name, so I gave her one.

“You look like hell,” Bert stated as Kayla took a bite of a cereal bar.

“I had a weird dream about Adam,” Kayla mentioned dismissively.

Bert sat opposite her, watching as she inhaled the strong tar-like aroma of the coffee that was cooling between them. “Why did you ask me if I slept?” he enquired.

“I don’t know. I guess it’s because I’m not used to been around people who don’t need sleep,” Kayla answered.

Bert watched as Kayla drank the sub-standard coffee the commissary provided chuckling as she sighed happily. “Now I’m waking up,” she stated contently.

Kayla refilled her mug, gauging Bert’s reaction to her having a second cup. “I have to have two cups of coffee or I can’t function,” she mentioned acerbically.

*

Kayla’s pager bleeped. She checked the display. “We’ve gotta go. There’s an emergency meeting at the White House.”

“Who with?” Bert asked mockingly.

“The president, General McKenzie and Colonel Dingham.”

As they made their way to the parking structure, Bert stopped. “The page was urgent Bert,” Kayla snapped.

Bert moved in front of her. “Why do ask as question you already know the answer to?”

Kayla smiled softly at him. “As a scientist I’m always asking questions, be them simple like what makes a watch tick? It’s the mechanism. I asked you about not sleeping because I find it curious that you don’t do that.”

Bert released a sigh under his breath. “When my wife was in the final stages of her illness, before she was admitted to hospital sleep became something of an unnecessary distraction. I often found that I’d be asleep for a couple of hours and then I’d have to get up to tend to her whether she wanted a drink or had wet the bed I had to clean it up.”

“What do you do when you’re awake?” Kayla asked, her curiosity piqued.

“I do sudoku puzzles and watch CNN, not that I pay any attention to it. Too much scaremongering.”

Kayla’s pager beeped again. “We better get to the White House,” she stated.


End file.
